Okay, so I really wanted to see these amazing old drawings of animals in those fancy handwritten books – illuminated manuscripts, right? Everyone posts little snippets online, but I wanted to find whole collections, the real famous ones. Where do you even start looking for something like that, especially without just getting lost in random online pics?
Just Googling Wasn't Enough
First thing I did? Typed something like "cool old book animals" into a search engine. Big mistake. Got flooded with pictures for sale, random blogs with tiny images, and stuff that looked modern. Felt messy and frustrating. Needed proper sources, not just pretty pictures floating around.
Digging Into Famous Library Websites
I remembered places like the British Library in London or the Morgan Library over in New York had old stuff. So I went straight to their actual websites. Took some clicking around sections like "Digital Collections" or "Treasures." You gotta be patient – it’s not laid out like shopping for shoes!
- British Library: Went down the rabbit hole looking at their "Digitised Manuscripts." They have a ton! You can actually zoom in crazy close on pages. Found lions in prayer books and weird fish in scientific texts. Took hours.
- The Morgan Library & Museum: Their online collection feels fancy. Used their search with words like "bestiary" or "marginalia animals." Hit the jackpot with this French book full of griffins and monkeys in the borders.
Finding Those Special "Bestiary" Books
Someone mentioned "bestiaries" – these are manuscripts all about animals, real and mythical. That became my new target. Found out places like Oxford’s Bodleian Library has a bunch online. Their "Digital Bodleian" section is huge. You type "bestiary" and boom – actual 12th-century books pop up. Seeing the lion and the unicorn pages felt like finding treasure. Lots of clicking through old catalogs, though.
University Collections Hold Gems Too
Wouldn't have thought of this at first, but some big universities have insane manuscript collections. Harvard’s library site was next. Searched "illuminated manuscript" + "animal" and found stuff from their Houghton Library. Saw an awesome rabbit getting hunted by a little dude with a spear! Also checked Utrecht University Library – those folks scanned their entire "Utrecht Psalter." Birds, dragons, dogs... crawling all over the pages. Seriously weird and cool.
Getting Specific Was the Real Trick
What finally worked? Giving up on vague searches. Instead of just "medieval animal pictures," I hunted for the famous names of actual books or collections. Like, "Aberdeen Bestiary," "Luttrell Psalter," or "Book of Kells." Typing those exact names directly into the big library sites or museum pages got me straight to the good stuff. Seeing the intricate snakes in the Book of Kells online? Wild.
So, Where Did I Actually Find Them?
Here’s the deal after all that clicking and searching:
- The Big National Libraries: British Library, Bibliothèque nationale de France. Their digital portals are deep. Pack a lunch.
- Big City Museums with Book Collections: Morgan Library in NYC, Getty Museum out West. Their online exhibits are slick.
- Old University Libraries: Bodleian at Oxford, Cambridge University Library, Edinburgh Uni. They hold crazy old stuff and are putting it online slowly.
- Specialist Digital Hubs: Places like Digital Bodleian or Walters Art Museum's digital manuscripts. They focus just on digitizing books.
Honestly, it took digging past the first page of search results and going straight to the source. The pictures online are cool, but seeing the actual pages as they exist in these famous collections? That’s the magic. Makes you feel like you’re peeking over the scribe's shoulder. Now I just have way too many browser tabs open...
